Yahoo Changes May Affect Your Email Delivery

Yahoo recently made changes to their DMARC authentication policy that could impact your email delivery. If you are using an @yahoo.com email address as your "from" address when sending messages from GreenRope or any other non-yahoo.com mail server, you are likely experiencing a higher rate of bounces and delivery to the spam folder.

What is DMARC authentication?

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is an email validation system that helps companies and organizations protect themselves from fraudulent emails being sent using their domain. Owners of the domain can make a change to their DNS records to tell mailbox providers if they should deliver, filter to the spam folder or bounce messages that are sent using their domain in the "from" address field. DMARC is a highly regarded policy by Yahoo and other large mailbox providers, like Gmail, Hotmail and others.

What did Yahoo change?

Yahoo recently changed their DMARC authentication policy to reject emails sent from a personal @yahoo.com email address if they are sent from non-yahoo.commail servers. This change will cause mail using a yahoo.com "from" email addresses from email service providers, like GreenRope, to bounce or be delivered to the spam folder for all mailbox providers who checks the email against Yahoo's new DMARC policy. This means your email delivery will be affected to Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail and Comcast at this time, and other ISPs in the future.

(This change to the DMARC policy affects all email service providers, not just GreenRope.)

What can you do?

If you use an @yahoo.com email address in the "from" address field, you should change it to a non-yahoo.com email address. The best solution is to use an email address with a domain you control (like your company's domain name). Please note, the "from" address is used to identify you as a sender and track your sender reputation. We recommend you choose an address you can use long-term to prevent a temporary decline in email delivery that can happen when you change the "from" address that the receiving mail providers don't recognize. You may experience a slight decline in delivery when you change your "from" address but it will quickly resolve as the mail providers associate of the new email address with your mailings.

At this time, it is okay to use other email addresses provided by other webmail providers, like Gmail and Hotmail. However, it is possible they will make the same changes to their DMARC policies some time in the future. For this reason, it is better to use a "from" email address with a domain you control.

This is also a good opportunity to take a look at the engagement of your subscribers, even if you do not use a yahoo.com "from" address. Many spam filters are taking into consideration the percentage of opens and clicks for your email campaigns in their formula for inbox delivery. A high percentage of inactive subscribers (those who have not opened or clicked an email in an extended period of time) could be hurting your delivery. The GreenRope Contacts Filters can help you identify your inactive subscribers. We recommend you either run a win-back campaign (a special offer to reengage them with your emails) or remove inactive subscribers from your distribution lists.

What can GreenRope do?

The change to the Yahoo DMARC policy is entirely out of our hands. It is not clear why Yahoo made this change or if they will change back to their previous DMARC settings. We can only recommend you change the "from" address to an email address that is not an @yahoo.com address.

If you are interested in more information about DMARC policy and why Yahoo would make this change, you can read more about it in this blog post by Laura Atkins at Word to the Wise.